Ten Tons of Trash for a Wedding Ring
Sanitation crew wades into action after hubby accidentally tosses wife's ring.
Nov. 12, 2009 — -- Bridget Pericolo's engagement and wedding rings have served as a symbol of the love she shares with her husband Angelo during 55 years of marriage.
That's why the New Jersey couple got their town's sanitation department involved in a search through tons of trash after Angelo Pericolo accidentally threw out the rings this past Monday.
It took Angelo and three men from Parsippany, N.J.'s sanitation department nearly an hour to sift through 10 tons of trash, but there they were -- his wife's wedding ring and engagement ring.
"It's unreal how we found these rings in a garbage bag. There were 1,000 black garbage bags in the truck," Angelo told ABC News. "I really believe in miracles now."
On Sunday evening, as Bridget Pericolo was watching television, she decided to take off her jewelry and placed her rings in a plastic cup in the couple's living room. When she woke up the next morning, the cup was gone.
She began the search for her rings.
"I called my husband and said, 'What did you do with that cup that was on the table?'" she recalled. "He said, 'Cup? I threw it out.'"
She tried to catch the garbage truck Monday before it pulled away with her rings, but she's 77 and suffered a stroke last year, and couldn't make it to the curb in time.
Later, Angelo came home from work and the couple tracked down their garbage truck on its route. Daunted by the amount of trash the truck had collected, the couple gave up the search.
"My husband said, 'You better forget about it, you're never going to find these rings, you're never going to find them in all that garbage,'" she said.
But the town of Parsippany didn't end the quest to recover the rings. The Parsippany Sanitation Department called Bridget Pericolo after their stop at the truck was unsuccessful.
"I told her to have her husband come down to our facility and we'll spread out the garbage to see if we can find it," sanitation supervisor Michael Brotons said. "By the end of the day, there was, like, 10 tons of garbage in the truck."
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